The Sacred Pause Between Knowing and Moving
If you are new, the Start Here page is the best place to get oriented. It explains the Trail Markers and the larger journey behind this work.
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Intro
If you’ve made it this far, you’ve already done a lot. Page Two and the checklist weren’t just about logistics, they stirred up real emotion. This page is about what comes next: not action, not strategy, but stillness. It’s about letting the dust settle before you move again. Because clarity doesn’t come from rushing in, it comes from sitting with what’s true.
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Purpose
In the Page Two post and the checklist, we did a lot of heavy lifting. Some of it was action-based — budgeting, cutting expenses, updating your resume, decluttering your digital space. The rest was emotional. That’s the hard part.
Most of us don’t really play in the emotional realm to this level very often. Maybe during romantic breakups, familial deaths, job losses. As a result, it’s not something we’re familiar with.
Think of wrestling with deep emotions as using a muscle: if we’re not working it out all the time, then sudden heavy use is going to cause fatigue and soreness for a few days (at my age, a few weeks!).
I remember the first time I started a true weight lifting program in my early twenties. I was in good shape, but I hadn’t lifted much, it wasn’t a big part of my sport growing up (swimming). Oh MY GOD — the burn! It was a good 3 or 4 days before it went away. Thankfully, even when I took breaks, it was never that bad again. But I’m always sore when I take a break.
Well, I expect you feel that way right now, after shifting through all those emotions from Page Two and the checklist. Bravo. That was a lot of uncomfortable work. Good for you for doing it.
So you’ve earned a bit of a break. I know, I know — you need to find a job. It’s a short break. And it’s really needed to create space for emotional digestion, recalibration, and the slow emergence of authentic direction.
Don’t worry, this isn’t stagnation. It’s the beginning of your rebirth and rejuvenation.
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Core Questions to Ask Yourself
What feelings surfaced during the inventory that I haven’t fully named or felt yet?
When I first found out about losing my job, it was all about momentum. I needed a job. I’d always had a job. As my childhood friend Harry pointed out a few weeks ago, I’m VERY lucky this was the first time I’d suffered a layoff. Survivor’s guilt is real. I’ve felt it somewhere in the neighborhood of 20+ times, but it’s nothing compared to the uncertainty one faces when they don’t have a job anymore.
If you’d asked me right after I got the news, the overriding feeling was probably disappointment. Fear (mostly of the unknown). These changed over time. If you’re having trouble naming your feelings, refer back to the weather analogies from Page Two.
What patterns or truths deserve more time to echo before I act?
For me, I needed to figure out what I wanted to do. I started life in sales, did pretty well, and for the most part I enjoyed it. At least that’s what 30 years of distance was telling me! I was intrigued by returning to those roots. I was also experiencing doubts about my skills and abilities that were new to me. I needed to explore each of these things before moving forward, at least before moving forward successfully.
What part of me wants to rush, and what is it afraid of missing?
This is where I stumble the most. Two things have led me to bad decisions in my life: the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) and the rush of dopamine I get from certain actions — buying stuff (especially when I shouldn’t), applying for a job, or when I was single, making a date.
None of these things are inherently bad, but the motivation was. I was doing them because the act of doing something felt good. There was a rush, and the feelings of being scared or the fear of missing out went away.
Unfortunately, because these were often poorly thought out, bad fits, hollow actions, that sugar high didn’t last long. It’s taken me a long time and a lot of work, but now I try my best to “sit” with the uncomfortable feelings I have. I journal. I started writing. I read. I hang out with my family.
I try very hard to avoid having FOMO at all (I’m better, but not 100%). And when I fail, I stretch it out and avoid the quick hits. I wait for the right thing. Patience has become my pattern. As a result, calm has replaced drama.
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Metaphors That Help
• Marinade: Letting flavors deepen before heat is applied. One of my old bosses at Cigna used this phrase when I moved from recruiting to innovation, specifically gamification. The idea was to soak up as much as I could before making decisions. Perfect here.
• Flavor Blooming: Like allowing spice or tea to sit in warmth to generate an explosion of flavor, we need to sit in the knowledge we just learned about ourselves before the wisdom locks in and we achieve the clarity of…
• Still Water: Reflection only becomes clear when the surface settles.
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Practices That Support the Pause
• Emotional journaling: Not for planning, for noticing. What are you feeling? Why? Is there a time when you had similar feelings, and if so, how did you move on?
• Somatic check-ins: Where does the inventory live in your body? For me, it’s frequently my neck, shoulders, and upper back. Tightness here leads to headaches. I can tell the difference between what’s stress-induced and what’s caused by my (recently repaired) disc issues.
• Time dilation rituals: Slow walks, candlelight, music that stretches time.
• Avoiding false urgency: Name the impulse to act quickly, then choose stillness.
These last two are really antidotes to the dopamine highs I mentioned before. The longer you can go before doing something impulsive, just because it makes you feel better for a short time, the better. This is different than procrastinating. This is purposeful and helpful.
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Cautions Worth Naming
• Beware the dopamine spike of “doing something” just to feel progress. As I’ve said before, this is pervasive for me, from eating to online shopping to sending emails. It’s not helpful. It’s destructive.
• Momentum is sacred, but premature motion can fracture fragile insight.
• Healing isn’t linear. Activation without integration risks bypassing the wound.
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Closing Thought
Sometimes the most courageous move is to stay.
To let the truth settle into your bones before you build from it.
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Evening Exercise
Tonight, set a 20-minute timer.
• Do a two-minute body scan.
• Write one sentence: “Right now I feel ___.”
• Take a 10 minute walk
• count you breath for 2 minutes (6 inhale 4 exhale)
Also, if a decision feels urgent, delay action for 48 hours and practice one Time Dilation ritual first.
Let the pause do its work.
